In a state where native breeds are dying out, Jallikattu events help in their conservation.

A
century ago, Tamil Nadu had six native breeds of cattle. Over the last 15 years,
one has become extinct and the others are in danger of following. That would be
a huge loss. Each breed has evolved in perfect harmony with its local region.

Kangayams,
fed on grasses in the calcium-rich soil, are astonishingly sturdy and can pull
up to 2.5 times their body weight with ease. Umbalacherys have shorter legs,
which make it easy for them to walk around in the water-filled fields of the state’s
Delta region. Barugurs in the hills of Erode district and Malai Maadus in Theni
district are adept at walking in hilly terrain. Pulikulam found mostly in
the region around Madurai, Sivaganga, Ramnad, Pudukottai, parts of Tiruchy
districts, can walk all day as they are
grazed.

Native
cattle, which have evolved over millennia, are an integral part of rural life,
especially for small and marginal farmers. They serve multiple purposes:
they provide milk and farmyard manure, they are used for ploughing and transportation.

By
reiterating a ban on the traditional bull-taming sport of jallikattu on
Tuesday, the Supreme Court may have undermined their chances of survival. To
understand why, it’s essential to look at the role jallikattu plays in the state’s rural ecosystem.

An essential role

Jallikattu
events are held once the winter harvest is finished. Bulls reared specially for
the sport are taken out to participate. Spectators take note of the best bulls on
display and seek them out in the shandies or cattle markets that are held from
December till April all over Tamil Nadu. Since small farmers cannot afford to
keep stud bulls, villages through the state buy a common temple bull to service
all the cows of the settlement. Jallikattu events provide the opportunity for
bulls to be exhibited.

Jallikattu
helps bulls establish their pedigree. The calves from such bulls, which have
displayed their agility on the sports field, are in great demand.

Male calves are kept only in regions with a tradition of sports like jallikattu. In
other regions, male calves are sold and taken to slaughter in only a few days. With the reduced availability of males,
farmers have to go for artificial insemination. Native cows do not yield as
much milk as the imported breeds and are not supported by breeding programmes. This results in the proliferation of
cross-bred cattle. Unless bulls are bred and reared in the region, their offspring
will be less likely to adapt to changes in the climate and local environment.

Article
48 of the Constitution requires to the state to “endeavour to organise
agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and shall, in
particular, take steps for preserving and improving the breeds, and prohibiting
the slaughter, of cows and calves and other milch and draught cattle”. Unless
we engage with the traditional livestock keepers and support them, we will lose
these breeds as well as lay the ground for commercial dairies and slaughter
houses to overwhelm small farmers.

Tracing the formation of Al Qaeda and its path to 9/11

A new show looks at some of the crucial moments leading up to the attack.

“The end of the world war had bought America victory but not security” - this quote from Lawrence Wright’s Pulitzer-Prize winning book, ‘The Looming Tower’, gives a sense of the growing threat to America from Al Qaeda and the series of events that led to 9/11. Based on extensive interviews, including with Bin Laden’s best friend in college and the former White House counterterrorism chief, ‘The Looming Tower’ provides an intimate perspective of the 9/11 attack.

Lawrence Wright chronicles the formative years of Al Qaeda, giving an insight in to Bin Laden’s war against America. The book covers in detail, the radicalisation of Osama Bin Laden and his association with Ayman Al Zawahri, an Egyptian doctor who preached that only violence could change history. In an interview with Amazon, Wright shared, “I talked to 600-something people, but many of those people I talked to again and again for a period of five years, some of them dozens of times.” Wright’s book was selected by TIME as one of the all-time 100 best nonfiction books for its “thoroughly researched and incisively written” account of the road to 9/11 and is considered an essential read for understanding Islam’s war on the West as it developed in the Middle East.

‘The Looming Tower’ also dwells on the response of key US officials to the rising Al Qaeda threat, particularly exploring the turf wars between the FBI and the CIA. This has now been dramatized in a 10-part mini-series of the same name. Adapted by Dan Futterman (of Foxcatcher fame), the series mainly focuses on the hostilities between the FBI and the CIA. Some major characters are based on real people - such as John O’ Neill (FBI’s foul-mouthed counterterrorism chief played by Jeff Daniels) and Ali Soufan (O’ Neill’s Arabic-speaking mentee who successfully interrogated captured Islamic terrorists after 9/11, played by Tahar Rahim). Some are composite characters, such as Martin Schmidt (O’Neill’s CIA counterpart, played by Peter Sarsgaard).

The series, most crucially, captures just how close US intelligence agencies had come to foiling Al Qaeda’s plans, just to come up short due to internal turf wars. It follows the FBI and the CIA as they independently follow intelligence leads in the crises leading up to 9/11 – the US Embassy bombings in East Africa and the attack on US warship USS Cole in Yemen – but fail to update each other. The most glaring example is of how the CIA withheld critical information – Al Qaeda operatives being hunted by the FBI had entered the United States - under the misguided notion that the CIA was the only government agency authorised to deal with terrorism threats.

The depth of information in the book has translated into a realistic recreation of the pre-9/11 years on screen. The drama is even interspersed with actual footage from the 9/11 conspiracy, attack and the 2004 Commission Hearing, linking together the myriad developments leading up to 9/11 with chilling hindsight. Watch the trailer of this gripping show below.

Play

The Looming Tower is available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video, along with a host of Amazon originals and popular movies and TV shows. To enjoy unlimited ad free streaming anytime, anywhere, subscribe to Amazon Prime Video.

This article was produced by the Scroll marketing team on behalf of Amazon Prime Video and not by the Scroll editorial team.